


dimensions in two

by postalcoast



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Modern AU, a bit of pining, although john's a bit clueless so he thinks its just him, everyone is alive !!!!! thank u and goodnight, morston secret santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postalcoast/pseuds/postalcoast
Summary: “Not entirely,” John shakes his head - or as much as he can. His whole neck feels stiff. His whole body feels stiff. “Guess I just make regrettable decisions, sometimes.”“We all do.”Arthur’s gaze falters down to the clean floor below them, and John isn’t quite sure what he means by that. “Maybe you should’ve just left me there for the wolves.”Arthur glances back up at him. “I didn’t mean you.”-A secret santa gift for littlestarofthewest!
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	dimensions in two

John Marston wakes, disoriented but alert, in a hospital somewhere within the state of Ambarino.

The tiled ceiling above him is the first thing his eyes settle on, then a woman he doesn’t recognize - her face cutting across his field of vision, looming and intense. He glances down at the tag attached to the pocket of her shirt. 

A Mary-Beth Gaskill. 

“Mr. Marston?” She asks, and John opens his mouth to reply, but no words come out.

Another face comes into his view - unfamiliar, just the same. A man with sandy hair and a tense, anxious expression etched into his features. He looks like he’s held that guise for days. 

The man’s dressed casual, just a t-shirt with some faded logo that John can’t really make out, so he doesn’t work here - John knows that much. Only one answer to the millions of questions polluting his mind.

When Mary-Beth is checking John’s pupils, and the man’s still hovering over him but out of the way just enough to not intervene with Mary-Beth, John asks where he is.

The words come out dry and coarse like sandpaper. From sleep, or from whatever has landed him here.

“You’re at Colter Memorial Hospital, Mr. Marston,” Mary-Beth tells him. “In Ambarino. This man over here brought you in a few days ago, said you’d been attacked by wolves.”

That last part tapers off with a hint of uncertainty, and she glances up at the man across from her like she’s looking for confirmation. John glances at him in time to catch the slight nod he gives her.

John remembers Ambarino. He remembers going there to hike. The wolves, however, seem to be broken up into little flashes of memory. He isn’t entirely sure if he remembers them or not.

“Who are you?” John asks the man.

“Arthur Morgan,” the man breathes out. “Me and a friend of mine, Javier Escella, found you while we were hikin’, brought you here. Lucky those wolves didn’t tear you to shreds.”

John isn’t entirely sure if the wolves, just little glimpses of them - teeth bared and angry, if these are images that are actually embedded in his memory, or just in his dreams. The soreness doesn’t kick in until John tries to sit up, a sharp pain that seems to shoot through his entire system. 

Mary-Beth eases him back down against the bed with a comforting hand against his shoulder. 

John isn’t sure which question to ask first, but Mary-Beth supplies an answer for at least a few of them.

“Your wife and son were in here yesterday,” She tells him. “I’ll call and tell them you’re awake.”

If those wolves didn’t finish him off, Abigail surely will. She’d told him how stupid of an idea it was to go off hiking alone, and here he is, doing nothing but proving her right.

But, he’d be glad to see her and Jack. He’s only been asleep for a few days, according to Mary-Beth - but he feels like he hasn’t seen them in years.

Mary-Beth turns and leaves the room, leaves John and this man who undoubtedly saved his life alone. The door shuts behind her with a small click, then silence engulfs the room. Not even the overhead outdated TV is turned on.

John settles back down against the pillow, and without looking at the man named Arthur who’s still half-way looming over him, he says, “Thank you.”

“‘Course.” Arthur waves it off, as if saving dying, half-eaten men was something he did regularly. Hell, it might be. John doesn’t know him.

He sees Arthur move out of the corner of his eye, sees him sit down in the chair a little ways off from his bedside. Sees him settle back into it, awkwardly, like he isn’t quite sure how to sit. 

“Guess it was a bad idea to go off hikin’ alone,” John half-chuckles. More humourless than anything else. He glances over at Arthur, and Arthur glances up at him with a humourless grin of his own. Polite and subtle. 

“Can’t argue with you there,” He shrugs, then leans back in his chair. “Thought maybe you had a deathwish, goin’ off alone like that.”

Arthur’s dressed in nearly all denim and has a cowboy hat propped up in his lap. A real off-duty rodeo cowboy in a faded denim jacket and work boots. But he’s got a handsome face and kind, sad eyes. John doesn’t even want to think about what he looks like in comparison.

“Not entirely,” John shakes his head - or as much as he can. His whole neck feels stiff. His whole  _ body _ feels stiff. “Guess I just make regrettable decisions, sometimes.”

“We all do.” 

Arthur’s gaze falters down to the clean floor below them, and John isn’t quite sure what he means by that. “Maybe you should’ve just left me there for the wolves.”

Arthur glances back up at him. “I didn’t mean you.”

***

“John Marston, I cannot believe you,” Abigail pushes her way into John’s small hospital room about an hour later, a four-year old Jack in tow. “I  _ cannot _ believe  _ you _ .”

Jesus, is John happy to see them. 

Dark hair thrown up into a loose bun, holding onto Jack’s hand with the  _ same _ hand that used to sport her wedding ring a couple of years ago before she gave it back to John after they’d split - Abigail is somewhere between furious and relieved. 

Arthur, standing up from the chair, hesitates - like he’s about to excuse himself and head outside seeing as this is probably a private conversation that he doesn’t need to be there for, but Abigail stops him. Deadset, right in mid-stride as Arthur’s heading for the door.

“You’re lucky Arthur found you when he did,” Abigail says, sweeping the hand that’s not clutching onto Jack’s in one fluid motion towards Arthur.

“I see you two have met already,” John says. “I was about to introduce you.”

They both ignore him. As they probably should.

“He’s probably one of the luckiest bastards I’ve ever met,” Arthur glances back at John, agreeing with Abigail. “Damn near dead and frozen when I found him.”

If this is lucky, he’d sure as hell hate to see what any unlucky situation would provide him with.

***

As it seems, when John drifts off to sleep, Arthur is there, and when he wakes back up, Arthur is still there. 

Abigail comes and visits every day, but she has to leave for work and to take Jack to preschool. She always seems worried, or frustrated, or relieved, or somewhere in between. Sometimes she’ll sit at John’s beside, with Jack on her lap, and they’ll talk. 

Sometimes, Arthur sticks around for the conversation, providing his own input, sometimes, he’ll head down to the cafeteria and get himself something to eat. Sometimes he’ll take Jack with him and they’ll come back with some toy from the gift shop that Arthur’s went and bought for Jack.

He’s got stitches in his face, and sometimes he’ll run his hand along the side of his face and feel them. If Arthur or Abigail either one catches him doing this, they’ll make him stop - swatting his hand away with worries about John somehow making them worse or getting them infected.

His face is still littered with big purple bruises and there’s still some swelling here and there, but his eye isn’t completely swollen shut like it had been so, there’s progress. John tries to avoid the mirror when he goes into the small bathroom that’s connected to his room, but every once in a while he’ll glance up and it looks like he lost a fight. 

Which, technically, he did. The way Arthur puts it. Those wolves would’ve ripped him to shreds, had Arthur and his friend, Javier not come along.

John still hasn’t met Javier yet, but Arthur talks about him ever so often. Says they go fishing together sometimes. Says Javier’s a real nice feller, that John would like him.

There’s still not much talk about when John will be free to go, but he still asks. Mary-Beth is the only one who’s really sort of upfront about it. She tells John she isn’t sure, but his wounds are healing nicely, so hopefully soon. 

She tells him to rest. He feels like he’s gotten enough rest to last him a lifetime.

He’ll fall asleep to the sound of the TV, the curtains pulled and the cold glow from the TV is the only light in the room. He’s never really been able to sleep in pitch-black darkness, nor has he ever really been able to sleep without a TV. Arthur tells him he can sleep with or without a TV, it doesn’t really matter.

He’ll fall asleep with Arthur sitting in the chair at his bedside, half-way sunken down in it with his legs stretched out in front of him. John tells him he can prop his legs up on the edge of the bed, if he’s uncomfortable, because he sure as hell looks uncomfortable. But, Arthur will always straighten up in his chair a bit like he’s self-conscious that John’s just now noticing him, and wave him off. 

“‘M fine,” Arthur will say. They’ll both go back to watching the TV together.

John’s always the one to fall asleep first. Sometimes he wonders how he can sleep at all - lying on his back. He’s used to sleeping on his stomach, taking up as much space with his spread out limbs as possible. Here, he can’t very well do that. 

It’s hard and probably not worth the risk to try sleeping on his side, he might accidentally knock out his IV or god forbid, work some of his stitches loose. 

So, John always falls asleep first. Sometimes, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and see Arthur sleeping in the chair. Either halfway sunken down in it with his arms crossed and his chin resting against his chest or completely doubled over on himself. 

John’s caught him like this at least twice now. Both times, he’s pondered on whether he should bother waking Arthur up because his position looks so damn uncomfortable or just let him rest.

He hardly knows the man - the man he owes so much to already, and yet Arthur’s became the last thing he sees at night before he falls asleep and  _ sometimes _ , the first thing he sees when he wakes up.

Of course, Arthur’s not here  _ all the time _ . But he visits every day. On the nights Abigail doesn’t spend the night, Arthur does. 

John asked him why, probably the day or so after he woke up in this place, and Arthur told him that he seemed like he had a lot to live for: a kid, a wife. 

“In a way, I guess I feel responsible,” Arthur tells him. 

Arthur’s usually gone in the mornings. He works at a pawn shop back in Blackwater, one run by a Dutch van der Linde - John’s never heard of him. Then this same Dutch van der Linde has a farm that Arthur helps out at sometimes. He likes to keep busy, takes his mind off things.

John wants to ask him if that’s why he wastes his time here with him: to take his mind off things, but he never does. He isn’t really sure how to word the question without it sounding ungrateful so he leaves it be. 

Abigail will come in the mornings sometimes before she has to be at work or after she drops Jack off at preschool. Arthur will come in the afternoons and stay late.

John’s grateful for the company. 

***

“The boy wanted to see you, John,” Abigail says one afternoon, walking into John’s room with Jack following after her, holding onto her hand and peering up at the bed where his father lay.

It might be an excuse, an example of that hard exterior that Abigail sometimes presents herself with, she might think it weak of her to admit that maybe she wanted to see John, too.

After all these years, John’s still trying to figure her out. Separate her words from what she means and what she wants the world to think she means. 

They still love each other, not like they’d originally thought. Two people who love and care about each other, just not two people who are  _ in  _ love.

“What about you?” John asks her, and reaches down to ruffle Jack’s hair when he comes close enough to John’s bedside. Even with him being so young, he mirrors his mother’s worried expression. “Did  _ you _ wanna see me?”

“Guess I was expectin’ to see a corpse,” Abigail takes the seat that Arthur will undoubtedly come in and inhabit later today, and Jack goes to join her. 

“Don’t think you’re quite that lucky, darlin’.”

Abigail rolls her eyes, but it’s hard to miss the fond smile that takes over her features. 

“Sure,” She says. “Guess you got enough luck for the both of us.”

***

“I got a boy, too,” Arthur tells him shortly after Abigail and Jack leave. 

He’d walked in right on schedule, a habit he’s made his own. John isn’t even surprised to see him anymore, more or less expects him to show up almost every afternoon sneaking in a couple of burgers from some nearby restaurant because he knows John hates the food that the hospital provides him with.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, a fourteen year old,” Arthur’s still watching the TV overhead, but he’s got this sort of small fond smile lingering on his features. Something proud that John can easily relate to when thinking about his own son. “His name’s Isaac.”

“Shit, I didn’t know you were a family man, Morgan,” John says, which is odd, because it’s the truth. All this time they’ve been spending together and John hadn’t the slightest clue Arthur had a family waiting on him back at home.

The man could be spending this time with them instead of here with him, in some hospital room hours at a time living off of sodas from the machine down the hall and take-out food. 

“‘M not,” Arthur shrugs. “Not really. Isaac’s mother and I divorced a few years back when Isaac was still pretty young, we gave it our best shot, but things just didn’t really work out. Isaac stays with me sometimes, or I’ll go over and visit.”

A silence falls between the two of them, not necessarily a heavy one, but slightly more tense than comfortable, verging right on the thin line between the two. The two of them thinking about what to say next and wondering if they should say anything at all. 

The TV doesn’t get many channels, mostly local ones featuring judge shows, news reports, or reality programs. There’s a commercial playing for one of the local restaurants Arthur brought back food from just a couple of days ago and the two of them watch in silence.

John’s the one who inevitably breaks. “Me and Abi, uh,” he starts, and Arthur’s attention is back on him once again. “We got divorced a couple of years ago, both decided it’d be better that way.”

Arthur nods, and he gets this look on his face that John reads as a mix between sentimental and thoughtful, perhaps empathetic. John doesn’t know. He used to think of himself as being so good at reading people, and yet Arthur’s something of a closed book. 

John must be a book that’s wide open in comparison, he thinks, with large print that you can read from a mile away. Maybe it’s Arthur that makes him like that, maybe he just opens himself up in hopes that Arthur will bother to look.

Little bits and pieces of his life he’s shared with Arthur over these past few weeks, bits and pieces he’s practically handed out, without even really thinking about it, and this stranger who John’s never met before but at the same time probably owes his life to has become something of a friend. 

In return, Arthur’s revealed bits and pieces of his life, like slowly pulling back a curtain or just picking pieces at random - little pieces that he’s allowing John to see of his life, one at a time. 

Something of an exchange between the two of them, a sort of “you show me yours, I’ll show you mine” kind of game the two of them have been unconsciously playing. 

Seems like overnight, Arthur’s became someone John wouldn’t mind sharing a couple of beers with, or maybe catching a movie with. 

It’s easy for John to imagine Arthur as a father, as a husband, or an ex-husband or an used-to-be-husband, but at the same time, it’s hard to imagine an Arthur that doesn’t exist outside of this small hospital room. 

This is the version of Arthur that John knows, that John was introduced to - all lumbering and sprawled out uncomfortably in one of the small hospital chairs in the corner of the room. 

Perhaps John would like to know every version of Arthur. 

Every version that Arthur felt like revealing to John, every version of himself he allowed John to learn about - and whatever that means for John to want this, he isn’t sure at the time. 

But he likes Arthur. And he wants to know him. 

***

Mary-Beth comes into his room one cold afternoon and tells John he’s going to be released tomorrow.

He calls Abigail and tells her, she says she’ll be there to pick him up when they discharge him. 

There’s a slightly crumpled post it note on the table next to his bed with Arthur’s number scribbled out on it. He’d given it to John one night, told him to call it if he needed him. 

There’s a slight hesitation in John’s fingers as they hover over the number pads, before he calls Abigail. He briefly considers calling Arthur, but he calls Abigail, instead. 

***

John had offered to buy Arthur a beer a few days beforehand. 

Digging through a brown paper bag stained with grease from the diner down the street that Arthur had carried in, tucked underneath his jacket and it still kind of smells like him just a little bit. 

A little bit like the cologne John’s smelled on him when Arthur comes close. Leaning out of his chair, arm and torso stretched to hand John the remote to the TV. Helping John find the small remote to call the nurse when he loses it somewhere in the sheets. 

“You and Javier both,” John told him, pulling out a burger with no pickles, no mayonnaise, no tomato. (“So you just want  _ lettuce and onion _ ?” Arthur had scoffed. “You eat just about like my boy does.”)

(John’s met Javier only once, when he came in with Arthur and John had shook his hand, told him thanks for saving his life. Javier had smiled, brushed it off in a way similar to the way Arthur has before.

The two of them a bit too modest for their own good.)

Arthur had made some sort of sound, dismissive, a vocalized wave of his hand.

“No, atleast let me do  _ that _ ,” John cuts him off - before Arthur can spring off into the many symphonies of  _ you don’t owe me nothin’, Marston.  _

_ (“You’re right - I don’t owe you nothing. I owe you something.”) _

“Alright, fine,” Arthur had said, begrudgingly but there was still a hint of amusement in his tone.

***

John still has Arthur’s number - the yellow piece of post-it note that it’s scribbled on, in the pocket of his jeans. He fishes it out when Abigail drops him off at his apartment. She offers to follow him in but she’s got Jack asleep in the backseat and John tells her there’s no use in waking him up and hauling him out and all that - he’s fine. 

She fixes him with a look, and he insists again. “Really, Abigail - I’m  _ fine _ .”

“If you say so, John Marston.”

***

“Ah, there he is, back within the land of the living once again,” His roommate, Sean greets him at the door - pulling it open just as John goes to unlock it, startling him a little and jerking the keys out of his hand. “I’m glad to see you, John.”

The keys are still in the lock on the door, dangling there along with John’s worn, faded lanyard and the keychain he got when he and Abigail went on their honeymoon. A little souvenir - like the magnet Abigail still has on her refrigerator. 

Sean came and saw him a few times while he was in the hospital, once when Arthur was there. Sean had immediately quirked his eyebrows up, silently throwing out a  _ “Friend of yours?”  _ that John’s more than well-rehearsed in Sean’s quips and gestures to catch. 

( _ King Arthur,  _ that’s what Sean’s started calling him.)

“Yeah, I bet,” John says, and he’s smiling. It’s easy to smile around Sean, always has been. “Bet you couldn’t _ stand  _ having this place to yourself while I was gone.”

***

“ _ Jesus _ , you’re still on about that?” Arthur says over the phone when John calls him. He brings up the owed drink on his own behalf and here Arthur is still trying to brush it off. John can’t say he really expected anything different. 

When John doesn’t reply, tucked away in his room to keep from Sean butting in on the conversation, he hears Arthur sigh. Half amused, half defeated. 

“Tell you what - there’s a bar I like a couple of blocks away from where I live -  _ Valentine’s. _ ”

“I know the place,” John tells him. “When’re you free?” 

“Isaac’ll be staying at Eliza’s tomorrow and the day after that - how about then? That sound good?”

John grins. “Tomorrow’s great.”

And maybe in his voice, John can hear the grin that Arthur’s wearing, too. “Alright, I’ll text Javier and tell ‘im we got a date.”

***

Valentine’s is a mere hole in the wall. 

Wooden floors, dusted with peanut shells and the smell of beer in the air like everyone’s just tossed their pitcher over their shoulder for a misled hope of good luck.

Loud classic country music plays, drowned out by the chatter coming from the bar patrons. 

Of course this is where the real hero, modern day cowboy Arthur Morgan chooses to come and have a beer. Of course it is.

John finds Arthur at the bar, with his back to him, and with Javier on the other side of him. 

There’s something playful welling up within the pit of John’s stomach, but also a feeling that’s a bit off-kilter at seeing Arthur in any other setting that isn’t his plain, stark hospital room back in Ambarino. 

Anticipation bubbled over with anomaly. 

Arthur hasn’t spotted him yet so John takes advantage of the couple of seconds he has to take Arthur in while he approaches the bar. He looks like he belongs here, not in the sense that the patrons and barflies feel they belong here - under the warm and comforting tippiness and conversation, but in the same way Arthur looked like he belonged in that chair beside John’s bedside, laughing at something John said with a mouthful of burger. 

He looks  _ handsome,  _ washed in the bright, neon glow from the beer signs hanging above the bar. John hangs onto that thought - about Arthur being handsome, about how that’s one of the first thoughts he had when he saw Arthur for the first time, and before he can think about it too long, Javier’s eyes dart over in his direction.

Then, Arthur must follow his eyes because Arthur looks at Javier - mid-conversation, realizing his attention is elsewhere, and he’s glancing around - at John now. And his features are constructed with a warm, friendly grin, kind of open-mouthed with his eye teeth showing. He looks even more handsome like this. 

John has a small thought in the back of his head that maybe Sean was right, with all the little looks and good-natured jokes that something more was lying beneath the surface of his and Arthur’s friendship. Maybe Sean was right, for once since John’s known him.

Maybe he likes Arthur. 

“Hey, there he is,” Arthur’s saying when John gets to the bar and takes a seat, clapping a hand on John’s back, in a familiar sort of way that he used to do before he’d leave the hospital and ask if John needed anything before he left. 

And maybe it’s the realization of things, but the moment seems awkward, almost. For once in Arthur’s presence John feels out of place and self-conscious. 

***

Fate is a funny thing, and it’s a funny thing that John never really gave much thought to. There’s a whole bunch of philosophy and life lessons revolving around fate and a person’s planned path of life - a whole bunch of empty words and thoughtful meditations that John never gave the light of day.

Half an hour later, while Arthur’s excused himself to disappear into the restroom (if this were any other date, perhaps he wouldn’t come back - it isn’t like that John hasn’t had a date end that way, of his own accord or someone else’s), fate is the topic of John and Javier’s conversation.

Javier’s sitting beside John at the bar (Arthur’s barstool a small barrier between them), still, and he muses to John that perhaps he and Arthur were meant to find him back in Ambarino. 

Perhaps they were meant to find John, half-eaten from the wolves, in the snow - as if what’s meant to be will find a way, and what was meant to be was Javier and Arthur finding John that day. 

Their destiny, or whatever. Fate.

“Like soulmates?” John asks, peering up at Javier with a half-amused smile. And Javier just shrugs, takes a sip of his beer. 

“Maybe.”

John wants to ask Javier if he thinks he and Arthur are soulmates, and maybe that’s why they found him. As if destiny couldn’t find a better way to introduce them. Hell, maybe Javier could be his soulmate.

Before John can float the idea out to Javier, before he can ramble on any further about this seed that Javier’s planted in his head - Arthur takes his seat between the two of them, and he turns and smiles at John.

And yeah, maybe they are soulmates. Maybe it’s not too far of a reach.

***

The headlights from Javier’s car illuminate them, and John squints against them like someone’s just pulled back the curtain in a dark room - flooding it in the loud, garish sunlight. Arthur waves at him as he drives off, and he turns back to John, still smiling. 

A smile meant for him and him only, John likes to think. 

And maybe it’s that thought that squashes down whatever’s left of the filter and shame he has left within him. He even - for a split second, wishes he was drunk, or well on the verge of it, then maybe he could blame it on him being a little bit too tipsy. 

But, hell, even that isn’t to blame. 

But he asks anyway. 

“You wanna come back to my place?” 

And Arthur’s smile flickers for a second, like a delicate flame and he looks like whatever he expected to come out of John’s mouth within the next few seconds, that definitely wasn’t it. At least John can manage to surprise him. That’s gotta count for something.

“And do what?”

Arthur’s looking at him straight on now, unfaltering, head tilted a bit so lighting from the streetlamp over them casts a shadow on the lower half of his face. He’s still got the palm of his hand planted against John’s car, not completely boxing John in but still close enough that John feels completely surrounded by him. 

It’s nice, John thinks. Having Arthur this close. Close enough that he can smell the cologne he wears. Close enough that can smell Arthur’s aftershave. Close enough that - even in the shitty bar parking lot lighting, he can see what color Arthur’s eyes are. 

“What do you think?” John shrugs, hands in pockets. The absolute perfect picture of nonchalant casual. Like this whole conversation means nothing. Like Arthur could just say ‘another time’ and get in his car, and leave John by himself in this parking lot and it wouldn’t mean a fucking thing. 

But that’s the thing about illusions. 

This one, however, John knows that Arthur can probably see right through it.

And Arthur laughs. A short, breathless kind of laugh that has John feeling a bit weak at the knees. God, he’s in even deeper than he thought. Full-on swan dive into the deep end of enticing waters he knows he’ll drown in. 

“I don’t know,” Arthur says slowly. 

“Forget it,” John says, all broken down courage. “It was a stupid idea anyway, I don’t know what I was thinking-”

“No,” Arthur cuts him off. “I mean, yeah.”

“What?”

There’s that laugh again. “ _ Okay _ , I mean.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Arthur smiles. That same smile that John can’t help but feel is his own. “Yeah, okay.”

***

Walking into a dark, empty apartment is a rare occurrence. 

Usually - almost always, John comes home to Sean. 

Sean, standing in their small kitchen, eating a slice of pizza he ordered, straight out of the box. Sean, laid back on the couch, remote in hand, flipping through the channels on the TV. 

Tonight, however, Sean’s over at Lenny’s. 

Something he reminded John of before John went out to go meet up with Javier and Arthur at the bar. Sean had suggested he could take advantage of the apartment being empty for the night, with his eyebrows sat high on his forehead and a sly sort of smile on his face. 

Then, however, John hadn’t actually considered taking him up on it.

John flips on the lights, and the apartment is bathed in light. The shuffling of boots lets John know Arthur’s right behind him, trailing in after him into the apartment. 

John presents the place to Arthur with his arms outstretched, spinning around to face him, one big grand, goofy gesture perhaps to mask how he feels. 

John feels a lot of things right now, he’s a bit nervous - or anxious for one, and hell, another part of him simply can’t believe this is happening.

Arthur glances around, brows raised and eyes flickering around the room before landing on John. The small, amused little upturn of his lips. 

“Nice place you got here, Marston,” Arthur says finally, but the remark doesn’t sound sarcastic. 

His apartment is all ordinary, the lackluster setting of his everyday life - and yet, here’s Arthur - standing right in the middle of it, taking in his surroundings like he’s just discovered something worth mentioning. 

“Thought you had a roommate,” Arthur says.

“He’s staying over at one of his friend’s - probably won’t be home ‘till tomorrow night.”

“Hm.”

His eyes leave John to examine one of the subscription magazines John’s left on the coffee table, the smile still lingering, and John takes a step towards him. 

Arthur must notice his staring because his eyes drift back up to John’s face, and his smile widens. The magazine, although momentarily forgotten, is still clutched in his hand. “What?”

“You plan on reading my magazines all night or…?” John trails off, taking a couple of steps closer.

“ _ Or? _ ” Arthur goads him on, still smiling, and lets the magazine fall back down against the coffee table.

John takes another step, and he’s way within arm’s reach of Arthur. (Close enough that his attention keeps getting stolen by the way Arthur keeps glancing down at his mouth, close enough that he can smell Arthur’s cologne again.)

John reaches out, as if answering him, and grabs at the loose fabric of Arthur’s flannel, pulling him in the rest of the way. Closing the distance. 

Arthur’s eyes flicker down to John’s mouth briefly once more before he kisses him. 

The kiss is slow and paced, and warm and nearly everything John thought it would be, and yet nothing he could ever really predict. Perhaps he’d thought about this very moment since he saw Arthur, and if not, perhaps not too far after that. 

John’s still clutching at Arthur’s shirt, and Arthur’s hands are warm and steady, gripping at John’s forearms, and John leads the kiss into something more heated, more wanting.

John’s hands travel down, reaching for Arthur’s belt, and maybe he’s imagining it, but he can feel the curve of Arthur’s lips twitch into a smirk when he threads it through the loops of his jeans. 

John breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead against Arthur’s and peering down, watching as his own hands work Arthur’s belt out of the last loop. Arthur’s hands leave John’s arms to assist, undoing the button of his jeans, and they fall to the ground along with his belt.

***

There’s something special - John thinks, about how a person looks and how that person looks at  _ him  _ before he goes down on them. Of course, Arthur is no exception to this tiny feeling of exhilaration. 

Arthur’s sitting back on the sofa now, shirt fully unbuttoned, with one hand resting on the arm of the sofa and the other tangled in John’s hair. The slight flush spreading across his face, the unwavering gaze he’s fixed on John that John can’t help but return.

John kinda wants to tell Arthur he looks pretty damn handsome like this, but instead he just moves his hands to rest flat upon Arthur’s thighs, and there’s this sort of smile that spreads across Arthur’s face like he knows what John meant to say without him having to say it. 

Maybe in a different universe they’d be soulmates, John has no doubts about that. He isn’t even entirely sure if they aren’t in this universe - maybe if they were things might be different, or the same. 

And it’s this, beyond John’s knowledge why, he decides to bring up instead. 

Brushing his thumb along the inside of Arthur’s thigh, John asks him if he believes a person can have a soulmate.

And Arthur’s all one big breath of a disbelieving chuckle. (Maybe if he dared to break eye contact with John now, he’d roll his eyes.)

“What?”

“I believe people can have soulmates,” John tells him, wearing Arthur’s infectious smile. “I think.”

“D’you believe we’re soulmates, John?”

“We could be,” John cocks his head to the side, feigning thoughtfulness. “Maybe that’d explain how you found me back in Ambarino in the first place.”

Arthur laughs softly again, and the sound of it is nice. “And here I thought it was just me being in the right place at the right time - but that’d be uncharastically lucky for me.”

“You’re luckier than me, it seems - or it  _ seemed _ that way.”

“You’re the lucky one, John, I told you that back at the hospital. Luckiest bastard I’ve ever met.”

***

Arthur lets out a groan with John’s mouth around him, and it’s not a very loud one but the sound of it seems to ring in John’s ears. 

John glances up at Arthur’s face, and his eyes are closed, his mouth hanging open just ajar. The hand that’s not still tangled in John’s hair is gripping at the cushion of the couch - not quite white-knuckled but still a pretty firm grip. 

John’s done this before, and he doesn’t want to go into the cliche of having that one person making it feel as new and exciting as your first time going down on someone - but Arthur kinda makes it feel that way. 

He likes the way Arthur inhales through his teeth when John flicks his tongue a certain way, or the sound he makes - a low, throaty groan, when John moves his tongue along the underside. He likes a lot about Arthur, he’s learned - so of course, this is only adding to the list.

Arthur’s hand tightens in John’s hair slightly when he comes, and pulls John up, and lets out another groan against John’s lips. 

Kissing Arthur is nice. It’s slow then frantic, clumsy yet paced. John hears himself sigh against Arthur’s lips, and Arthur only presses himself closer, as if trying to lick the sound from John’s mouth.

***

It’s a few hours later, when they’re laying in John’s bed, watching TV, and John’s thinking about how under many circumstances this could be considered a one night stand, and how also under even more circumstances, it couldn’t be - that Arthur tells him that maybe he’s right.

“About what?” John diverts his attention away from the television screen to glance over at Arthur, who’s bathed in its bluish glow. (He looks handsome like this, too. John hasn’t really discovered a situation or angle in which he doesn’t, yet.)

“About the soulmates thing,” Arthur tells him, and he’s smiling. “I think people can have soulmates, too.”


End file.
